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My Birth Story

I woke up on Friday 8th October at 1am with contractions. At first I was convinced I just needed a poo, so spent a few hours up and down the stairs to the toilet getting annoyed that the pain wasn't subsiding. After counting how long the pains lasted and how long there was in between, I decided to wake Ross up at 4am by telling him he wouldn't be going into work that day.. I was in labour!

At about 7am we rang the hospital who told me to take some paracetamol and have a bath. A bit off track here.. but I hate it when they do that. I'm not being funny, if you're in labor, paracetamol isn't going to help in the slightest. Why they even suggest it is beyond me. Anyway.. They wouldn't admit me until my contractions were 2 minutes apart. We called our family to let them know it was time and then I gave in and decided to get in the bath. It helped for about 10 minutes until the pains came back stronger than ever. They finally reached 2 minutes apart so we rang a taxi and rang the hospital to tell them we were on the way.

At the hospital I was examined and told I was 3cm dialated. My contractions had slowed right down and I was told I'd probably be sent home. (If you're a man, look away now) They decided I should stay in as my cervix was paper thin and apparently if my waters broke, baby would be here very quickly and they didn't want to risk me being at home when that happened.

I had a few hours bouncing on a birthing ball which I hated because it bought on my contractions. I still wasn't dilating and I cried every time I bounced.

Between 6-8pm is when the pain really kicked in. My contractions seemed to be 30 seconds apart but lasting over a minute each time which didn't leave much chance to rest or recover. I was moved rooms 3 times.

I told one midwife I was in a huge amount of pain hoping for an offer of pain relief to which she responded "Well you are in labour."

My response: "No shit Sherlock!"

I continued with gas & air, the pain getting increasingly worse to the point I was in tears. I was took into the last room where my waters finally broke. I didn't understand why the pain was so intense, absolutely everywhere in my body, until I was informed that baby was actually back to back. This meant that the babies back was facing my back so the contractions I felt were in my stomach, sides, bum and back rather than just the front.

Eventually I was finding it really hard to breathe through contractions so I was hooked up to a machine to monitor baby. It turned out that she was actually in distress and had pooped. We all know how bad that can be.

After a nurse/midwife or whatever she was had been in and attempted to turn baby round using her hands (yes, that's right) they decided that a c-section was the only option left. I can confirm I have never felt pain like I have when she was trying to turn the baby. I actually wanted to die and told everyone in the room so. I called the woman with her hands up my hoo-ha that I wanted her to die and I would kill her myself if she didn't stop.

I had to sign a form (which is ridiculous considering the amount of pain I was in) and then suddenly whisked down to surgery. Unfortunately, whilst they were attempting to get in the spinal block, is when my body decided to start convulsing and pushing of it's own will. Some random nurse/doctor in the background made the snide comment of "Well she wasn't doing this before.." No I didn't do it before.. you told me not to. Finally they managed to get the block in and everything disappeared.

All of the pain I had been feeling was gone, my legs wouldn't move. The only thing I could move was my arms and my head. It was pure bliss.

Ross was bustled into the room and sat next to me. Apparently he 'saw my womb' which was the weirdest experience of his life.

The whole thing was surreal. One minute I was begging to die, and the next I was lying stock still in heaven and hearing my baby cry for the very first time.

Princess was born on Saturday at 05:56am weighing 6lb2oz.

She was handed over to Ross. The very first thing I noticed was how long her fingernails were and I promptly burst into tears.

She was so tiny.

Recovery afterwards wasn't very nice. I was bed bound for 24 hours and in a lot of pain. I had a cathetar out one side of me and a drain hanging out of the other. I had huge vibrating pads strapped to my legs which were hot and itchy. I had to call a midwife every time I wanted to hold my baby because it hurt too much to move to do it myself. I couldn't shower until the next day so I was disgustingly hot and sticky still.

I was kept in hospital for 3 days afterwards. We were finally allowed home on Tuesday 12th October.